Colleen Atwood accepting her Oscar for Best Costumes, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The ampersand pin she’s sporting is in support of GLAAD – Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

I was in a panic because I knew it was a massive project and there’s not that much stock actually left from this period, so the first thing I did was go to every costume house in the world and pull the stock that we’re working with, with the help of some assistants. I started in L.A., because they have a lot of that stock between all the different costume houses there and also I felt that America embraced the 1920s in a bigger way than Europe, in a fashion sense. I wanted it to have a real American feel to it.

– Colleen Atwood, American costume designer

Some costumes were built for the film including Eddie Redmayne’s peacock blue coat.

Ms. Atwood is speaking about her work on the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (set in 1920s NYC), for which she just won the 2017 Oscar for Best Costumes.

A seasoned professional, Ms. Atwood has won now four Oscars, including for Chicago 2003 and Memoirs of a Geisha in 2006.

In an interview with online publication Pottermore, Ms. Atwood says she’s not a seamstress and she doesn’t have the time sketch every costume. As the designer she does the concept work and gives notes to her sketch artist. She’s known for always being on set and for having an keen eye for detail. No wonder she’s a Oscar winner!